I had the audacity to take the tripod ring out to loose some weight on the lens for travel and when I tried to put back on the nut would not lock (or even engage). At the back of the tripod mount, there appeared to be a small window being put together using 2 small phillips style nuts, and well you can guess it. I tried to take them off and the nuts stripped.

Any suggestions? It feels like im doing something really silly, this should not be that difficult :-)

As long as the studs are still tightly fastened to the lens body, I'd say you should leave them alone. The tripod mount ring has a small red dot on its front edge that you align with the lens mount index red dot, and then the ring slides over the studs. At least, that's how I understand your situation. It seems a bit less clear what's going on when I read it the second time...

jcolwell wrote:
As long as the studs are still tightly fastened to the lens body, I'd say you should leave them alone. The tripod mount ring has a small red dot on its front edge that you align with the lens mount index red dot, and then the ring slides over the studs. At least, that's how I understand your situation. It seems a bit less clear what's going on when I read it the second time...

The studs on the body are fine, it is the collar itself where I think opened it more than intended leaving the nut uncoupled from the bolt inside the tripod collar. There are screws allow for this to be fixed which I ended up stripping by using a phillips. Anyhow , the collar is at local shop and should be getting fixed tomorrow.